I've only been seriously into hand tool use for a few years, but it seems that we may be moving into a new age of hand tools. It just seems like there are now more options. Stanley and Wood River seem to be working to produce a usable, user grade tool. Chris Schwartz seems to be moving more and more to the light side. Jim Tolpin of Table Saw Magic fame is selling his power tools and devoting his next book to hand tools.
Internationally, traditional Chinese and Japanese tools are becoming more available and truly modern manufacturing technologies are turning out better tools. There's some attempts to combine traditional tools such as frame saws with Japanese blades (I have my own experiment going on with this that I will be posting about soon). Here's an attempt to put a Japanese sawblade on a classic handsaw that can cut on the put and pull stroke. http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/product/712090/Turbo-Cut-Hand-Saw-330/detail.jsf (Sadly, doesn't seem to be available in the US).
Before it seemed like hand tool guys were Galoots and Neanderthals, living in the old days, but more and more it seems like there will be a place for hand tools in the modern shop. I expect some of these thing to fail, but it just seems like there is innovation going on for the first time in a while.
Internationally, traditional Chinese and Japanese tools are becoming more available and truly modern manufacturing technologies are turning out better tools. There's some attempts to combine traditional tools such as frame saws with Japanese blades (I have my own experiment going on with this that I will be posting about soon). Here's an attempt to put a Japanese sawblade on a classic handsaw that can cut on the put and pull stroke. http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/product/712090/Turbo-Cut-Hand-Saw-330/detail.jsf (Sadly, doesn't seem to be available in the US).
Before it seemed like hand tool guys were Galoots and Neanderthals, living in the old days, but more and more it seems like there will be a place for hand tools in the modern shop. I expect some of these thing to fail, but it just seems like there is innovation going on for the first time in a while.